A deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables.
Thinking in hierarchy. The project management Work Breakdown Structure breaks down the bigger picture of your project into detail tasks and sets the duration of those tasks. If you fail to identify a major part of your project's work, you won;t have chance to detail it!
The Work Breakdown Structure is often represented in such forms as diagrams, tables, or outlines. These can, like the budget, be created using spreadsheet software or the programs dedicated to project management.
How you develop Work Breakdown Structure?
Question to ask yourself :
Determine the major pieces of work - "What major pieces of work does this project entail?
Divide each major pieces into its component parts - "What major pieces of work are necessary to complete this portion of the project?
Divide each of there work pieces into its components parts - "What major pieces of work have to be done to complete this portion of the project?
Example of Project Management Work Breakdown Structure for Aircraft System:
or in more simple explanation:
Thinking in hierarchy. The project management Work Breakdown Structure breaks down the bigger picture of your project into detail tasks and sets the duration of those tasks. If you fail to identify a major part of your project's work, you won;t have chance to detail it!
The Work Breakdown Structure is often represented in such forms as diagrams, tables, or outlines. These can, like the budget, be created using spreadsheet software or the programs dedicated to project management.
How you develop Work Breakdown Structure?
Top Down approach - Start at top level in the hierarchy and systematically break down activities into their component parts. Useful when you have good idea of the work beforehand. Proceed as follows:
- Specify all work assignment for entire project
- Determine all tasks for each work assignment.
- Specify the sub tasks for each task.
- Continue in this way until you have detailed the entire project.
OR
Brainstorming approach - Generate all possible activities for this project an then group them into categories. Useful when you don't have clear sense at the outset of a project.
- Write all activities that you think are necessary for you project.
- Group the activities into few major categories ( level 1 categories)
- Next divide the activities under each category into groups (level 2 categories)
- Now use the top down method to identify additional activities missing.
- Continue in this way until you have detailed the entire project.
Determine the major pieces of work - "What major pieces of work does this project entail?
Divide each major pieces into its component parts - "What major pieces of work are necessary to complete this portion of the project?
Divide each of there work pieces into its components parts - "What major pieces of work have to be done to complete this portion of the project?
Example of Project Management Work Breakdown Structure for Aircraft System:
